


5 Times Josh Was Too Late and the 1 Time He Wasn't

by zoeleigh



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: 5+1 Things, M/M, Panic Attacks, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-10-19 21:15:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10648185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zoeleigh/pseuds/zoeleigh
Summary: Tyler's relapsed, and Josh doesn't know how to help him.





	5 Times Josh Was Too Late and the 1 Time He Wasn't

**Author's Note:**

> please be cautious when reading

**1**.

The first time it’s hard to believe. Tyler’s gone almost 8 months without slipping up, without relapsing. The last time he relapsed, I caught him before he could do much, he’d barely broke the skin when I found him. But this time, I’ve missed all the signs. I missed him withdrawing from activities with the crew between shows. I missed him running through shows on autopilot. I missed him eating less. I missed him writing more slow rhythm piano ballads and less upbeat drum driven tunes. I missed it all.

In fact, I wouldn’t know anything if I hadn’t of watched him change for the show that night. I might’ve missed it entirely.

~~~|-/~~~

“Hey, Ty, you need to change pants. It’s about time to head to stage.” 

I rest my head on top of the wardrobe waiting on Tyler to respond. He looks up at me before answering, “Oh yeah, uh you can go on i-if you need. I’ll catch up.”

Something’s off, I know it.

“No, it’s fine Ty, I’ll wait. No one’s gonna walk out on us if we’re on a minute or so late. Not anymore at least,” I add with a grin.

“Yeah, uh, yo-you’re right. Let me just, um, grab my pants.”

Tyler hobbles over to the wardrobe and pulls out his black pants and shoes. Instead of changing right there in front of the wardrobe like normal, he goes back to the couch and faces his back to me. Yeah, something’s definitely wrong. He’s stuttering, dragging his feet, and hiding himself. But now’s probably not the best time to ask.

Finally, Ty kicks off his shoes and shimmies out of his black skinny jeans. Quickly he pulls up his show pair but not before I catch sight of bandages on his thighs with a sickly, dark red color hiding underneath them. Before I can get a good look, however, his pants are pulled right back up, concealing whatever is there. 

“Okay, let’s go.”

 

After the show, Tyler went straight into the venue’s shower, coming out clothed in basketball shorts and a black hoodie with slightly damp hair. I sat on the couch waiting for my turn. As soon as Tyler walked out, I dashed in, desperate to not take too long so I can talk to Tyler in private before getting on the bus. Hurriedly I wash myself and stagger out of the shower and back into the shared dressing room, fully dressed to see Tyler staring distractedly at his phone. 

“Hey Ty, good show huh?”

He nods.

“I almost didn’t think you were going to land that one jump, you looked like you might fall and miss the last chorus.”

Tyler nods his head, “Yeah, I didn’t either. It’s a miracle I didn’t hit my head and end up in the hospital or something.” Something about his voice tells me he wouldn’t of minded. “Good thing you didn’t,” I laugh out. A fake, concerned laugh, but a laugh nonetheless. I go and sit beside Tyler, producing my own phone out of my pocket. We sit in silence for a few minutes as Tyler does god knows what and I scroll through the show’s hashtag on twitter looking at pictures and videos. I find a funny tweet commenting on Tyler’s facials during the beginning of trees -I must admit the pictures attached were pretty hilarious- and scoot beside Ty to show him. “Look Ty,” I say shoving the phone over his own, “I must agree with them. You can make some pretty funny faces.” “Yeah, it’s my goal each night. Make the most meme worthy face possible, or it’s all for nothing,” Tyler jokes. I laugh with him and decide to place my hand on his thigh where I saw the bandage earlier, see if he reacts. Very gently, but still hard enough to elicit a reaction, I slap his thigh like I was just laughing. He winces and I can feel him tense his leg up.

I stop laughing immediately and tug his shorts up revealing a patch of mildly deep red lines running up the side of his right thigh, the bandage discarded somewhere. Tyler’s smile drops too and he yanks his pants back down, bringing his body in on himself afterwards. “Tyler,” I say, concerned and gentle, trying to be cautious and not upset him too much, “What happened?” He shakes his head and hides in his arms. “C’mon Ty, you gotta talk. This can’t get any worse. Okay? We need to deal with it,” I rub his neck soothing, knowing it calms him down sometimes. Tyler just shakes his head again, soft sobs come shaking out of his mouth. “Come’ere,” I mumble, wrapping my arms around his shivering body.

We sit there for a few minutes like that, Tyler crying and me trying to calm him down. Finally the tears subside, mostly, and I push him away from me so I can see his face. He casts his eyes downward, “Look at me Ty. I can’t help you like this, and I gotta help you.” He looks up at me, “I don’t know,” the words come out so small, so scared. I grab his hands, “You don’t know what Ty?” He takes in a big breath and pushes out,

“I just, I don’t know. I don’t know what happened. I was fine. I was better. I was becoming less of a disappointment to everyone. But then after a while, I started thinking about how much better I was doing -before then I hadn’t really thought about it- and then that lead to thinking about all the ways I was still, am still, disappointing everyone and being so horrible. I just couldn’t take it anymore. So I started falling back on old habits. And so, here I am.”

I don’t say anything, instead I envelop him in a hug and let him cry into my shoulder. I let Ty cry for a few more minutes before I start talking again,

“It’s okay, okay? We’re gonna face this together. But right now I need you to take in some deep breaths before we do anything else. I don’t want you to psyche yourself out anymore okay? Breathe in with me,” we both breathe in, I count to five, “and breathe out,” the air leaves our lungs, “Now I need you to keep doing that Ty, keep doing that while I ask some simple yes or questions. Can you do that?” He nods his head yes paired with an exhale.

“Is this the first time since your last relapse?”

Nod.

“Did you do it last night?”

Nod.

“Did you clean them up and take care of the cuts properly?”

Nod.

“Do you still have the blade in your possession?”

He shakes his head no.

“Did you get rid of it?”

Nod.

“Will it be okay if I search the bus later to make sure you didn’t hide something?”

Nod.

We go back to sitting in silence, waiting for bus call, with me making a mental checklist of everything I need to check for back on the bus and Tyler sitting there quietly crying in my arms.

 

**2.**

“C’mon Ty, we gotta go to the interview,” I yell to him from outside the door to his dressing room. Our rooms are separate today, side by side though so it’s not as bad as opposite ends of a hall. “Ugh, I’ll be there in a minute. I just gotta put shoes on,” his voice tinged with annoyance. I shut his door back and prop myself up against the wall beside waiting on him to come out. He pops out of the door a few seconds later with a smile on his face and a pair of black sunglasses in his hair. “Sunglasses day today Joshie,” and he hands me my own pair of sunglasses. 

We don’t say much as we head down the hall to a bigger room fitting for more people. Once we get in the room we both take a seat on the plush love seat up against the wall that’s obviously for us as cameras are already set up around it. A chair sits across from it and it’s nice knowing that we won’t have to share the already cramped seat with another person. Given another minute or so, the interviewer starts the camera and sits down, extending his hand to shake as a hello. I notice Tyler tense up when the interviewer grabs his hand. It’s probably nothing though,Tyler just doesn’t like being touched by people he doesn’t personally know, plus Tyler said he hasn’t hurt himself anymore in the past week since I first noticed and the interviewer didn’t even go near his arm where there might possibly be a cut. The interviewer jumps right in with the questions as soon as they drop Tyler’s hand and begins asking the basic questions we get almost everyday. Both Tyler and I go on autopilot, answering each question without thinking.

Finally, the interviewer wraps up by asking if we’d do the handshake as an outro for the video. We both agree, standing up and walking over to the empty corner so we can stand up. As our hands touch with each part of the handshake, I can feel Tyler tensing up, something he doesn’t do during the handshake. Then I see it, as Tyler snaps at the end, I see the faint red lines on the inside of his fingers. I grab Tyler’s hand to bow “for the camera”, squeezing enough to let him know that I noticed. 

The interviewer thanks us once more off camera, telling us how big of a fan they are of our music and how much it’s helped their best friend overcome a lot of personal problems. Then the next interviewer is up. She asks some of the same questions. And so does the next one. The rest of the time, Tyler’s distant, looking quite like a deer in headlights. After the third interviewer leaves, we both head out of the room back to our separate dressing rooms. I give Tyler a minute before walking into his room. When I walk in, he’s sitting on his couch crying into his hoodie sleeves breathing irregularly.

“Hey, Ty, can I touch you?” I ask, noticing the beginning of a panic attack immediately. He nods yeah so I sit down beside him and rub his back. “I’m sorry J-sh,” sobs break up my name, “I’m such a disappointment and I’m sorry.” “Hey, it’s okay. I’m not mad, I’m not disappointed, I just simply want to help. So I need you to take deep breaths. We have sound check in about 20 minutes, if you need you can postpone that a little longer but we do have to get you calmed down eventually for the show okay? Deep breath on three… one, two, three,” I breathe in and so does Ty. “Breath out,” and we both exhale. “Do you need to breath in and out more Ty? Or can we talk now? Don’t push yourself,” I look at Tyler’s huddled figure. Tyler nods again and sits up, “I’m good, I’m good. Sorry, I just, I, it’s just getting bad again y’know?” I nod, we’ve had countless talks about it being “bad” late at night when Tyler felt like nothing was stopping him from sharing. Sometimes I’d contribute with my bad bouts of anxiety during high school and early twenties. 

“Do we need to have a late night talk tonight to work it all out? Or at least to start?”

“Uh, yeah, I think that would be nice.”

“Tonight we’re on the bus so do you wanna talk in the studio room?”

“Yeah. Let’s do that.”

“Promise me you won’t do anything before then okay?”

“I promise,” Tyler nods.

After the show ends, we head back to the bus early with the excuse of working on a new song given to Mark. I don’t think Mark believed it, but he at least pretended to buy it and let us off without a word. Tyler almost immediately drops into his writing seat and starts crying. I wrap him up in a gentle hug, whispering soothing words into his ear.

“Hey, hey it’s okay. Let’s talk okay? Do you want me to start?”

He nods and I begin talking about my recent struggles with anxiety and panic inducing situations. I tell him about how I pulled myself out of a panic attack between songs tonight. I tell him how I called a few people on the phone who I don’t feel comfortable talking to in that type of environment. I tell him that I’m proud of him. I tell him how much I love him and care about him and eventually, he stops crying and starts sharing. 

We talk for what must have been a few hours before I yawn for probably the millionth time in the past five minutes. 

“Hey, Ty, you wanna go to bed? If you still need to talk or don’t feel comfortable being alone I can drink someone coffee or something energizing. Or, if you just don’t wanna be alone, I’ll see if Mark or someone can come sit with you.”

“I, uh, I think I’m good. You can go on to bed, Josh. I think I’m gonna write a little.”

“Okay. Come get me if you need me alright? I’m gonna do a quick sweep just to make sure there’s nothing in here.”

 

**3.**

I wake up to a quiet tearfulness pouring out from underneath the studio door. Quickly, I roll out of my bottom bunk and pad into the studio, hoping to find anything but what I walked into. Tyler’s sitting in the middle of the floor, holding a lighter to his burning leg and crying. I run over to him and take the red lighter from his fingers and shoving it into my pocket to dispose of later. Before doing anything else, I look at Tyler’s exposed leg trying to assess how bad the burn is. All the while, he stays sitting there silent with tears falling down his cheek.

“Tyler, I don’t think we need to go to the hospital, but I do need to go get a cool wash cloth and some aloe and I need you to come with me. Okay?”

He doesn’t respond verbally, but when I go to pick him up he isn’t resistant. We hobble along to the couches of the van and I tell him to sit there while I fetch what it is I need. Which, in truth, is Mark. 

“Tyler, I’m gonna go get Mark. It will only be a second. Please, please, please, just sit right there. It will only be a moment then I’ll be right back and I won’t leave you again.”

He doesn’t respond, doesn’t even acknowledge my words but I head back to the bunks and stop at Mark’s, tapping on the frame of his bed anyways. When he doesn’t respond I pull the curtain back and shake his shoulder’s gently, careful not to make him fall out of bed. Mark wakes up a couple seconds later with a groggy “What?” “C’mon, I need you in here please. It’s important. It’s about Tyler,” I whisper into his bunk. Mark pushes himself up and out of the bed, “Yeah, what is it?” His voice is still infested with sleep, if I didn’t need his help I might feel bad for waking him up in the middle of the night. “Tyler’s, uh, well Tyler’s relapsed. It started about a week ago and I thought I had it under control but I didn’t and yeah. He doesn’t need the ER but I can’t watch him by myself Mark. I just can’t,” my voice shakes with each panicked syllable. 

Mark rubs my back, “Calm down Josh, please. I can’t have both you and Tyler emotional wrecks.” I take a deep breath, “Yeah, okay. I just, uh, can you get a cool rag and some aloe? I’m gonna go sit with Tyler, make sure he doesn’t do anything else. It’s just, this is my fault. I shouldn’t of gone to bed, I should’ve stayed with him tonight. If I had this wouldn’t of happened. If I had just payed attention to my best friend, none of this would’ve happened. I, I could’ve-“ Mark interrupts, “Josh, calm down. This isn’t your fault. You still need sleep, you still have your own problems. You can’t control Tyler’s actions. Go grab some water and then have a seat with Tyler, okay? Is he in there on the couches?” I nod my head, “Yeah. At least he’s supposed to be.”

“Okay, you go in there with him. I’ll go get the rag and aloe from the bathroom.”

 

**4.**

I hurriedly stride back to the couches to find Tyler’s not in there. Frantically, I dash into the kitchen, aka a fridge, microwave, and sink, to find Tyler running a knife over his sides left uncovered by his muscle tank. His eyes are full of tears. “Tyler, fuck, Tyler. Please, just put it down. _Shit._ Ty, please drop the knife,” I’m sure my voice is too loud and I’ve probably woken up a few others on the bus, if not everyone, but I don’t care. Tyler pulls the knife away from his body slowly, setting it down in the small sink. Cautiously, I approach him, hoping to not set him off anymore. At this point, a few scattered tears are rolling down my face too. Mark comes in now, rag and aloe in hand, ready to treat the large burn on his leg. “Mark,” I say to him without turning away from Tyler, “Please go get the first aid kit. Wherever it is. I think it’s in the extra bunk with the suitcases.” I’m trying to stay calm, trying to push down the inevitable panic bubbling up inside waiting to spill out and upset Tyler further. 

“Ty, come sit down, please. Can I touch you?”

He doesn’t respond whatsoever, so I kindly grab onto his hand and pull him over the ten or so feet it is to the couches. As soon as Tyler sits, Mark comes back in with the first aid kit. Without hesitation, I fling it open and dig out the huge pieces of gauze I had put in there last time Tyler was this bad in order to stop the slow, steady stream of bright red blood. Once again, without turning, I give Mark instructions which he probably would’ve done anyways, “Mark, will you go check on the crew? See if I woke anyone up please?” I hear Mark’s footsteps echo down the short hall, if you’d even call it that. 

“Hey, Ty, will you look at me please? I don’t know what’s going through your head right now, I don’t know why you didn’t come get me. But let me assure you, I’m not mad okay? Please don’t think that. You’re upset, you’re sick. This isn’t your fault okay? We just might need to take some time so we can get you feeling better again,” Tyler keeps his head down until the last part before bursting out,“No! We can’t take time. I know what you mean by that and we can’t cancel the tour, we can’t even cancel one show. These kids need this, us, and we can’t take that away from them. I refuse to take any time off of the tour. Our fans are more important.” I wipe blood away one last time before placing a bandage on his sliced side. “Not to me Tyler. You’re more important to me than any fanbase, anyone. I can’t lose you. Even if that would mean changing my name and starting a farm in Kansas. I don’t care, I’ll do anything. And right now, we need to take time off. We’ll have to talk to a few people about it, but there’s not much else you can do to change my mind,” I throw the bandage trash away and grab the rag and aloe from the floor where Mark left it.

I step into the kitchen again to wet the wash cloth, getting it nice and cool. When I return, Mark is standing at the edge of the bunks talking to what seems to be 2 other guys. I can’t make out which ones. “Tyler, give me your leg please,” he extends his leg out and I grab it before gently running a cool cloth over the burn. After I’ve went over it about ten times I grab the bottle of aloe and pour some onto my hand. I slowly rub it into the fairly large, but thankfully not too bad, burn. The heat from the burn irritates my hand.

Once Tyler’s wounds are treated for, Mark helps me get him into his bunk. We both decided to watch him until he falls asleep then we’ll alternate watching him throughout the night with Mark taking first watch since he slept the most.

While we both wait for Ty to fall asleep, we know he’s either not asleep or just barely dipping into the first few stages of sleep from the lack of Tyler sounding snores, I bring up postponing the rest of the tour, “Look, I don’t wanna cancel, and obviously neither does Tyler. But we need to get Tyler some help again and I don’t know how that’s possible while being on tour.” Mark nods his head, “It’ll be tough to convince anyone of that though. With Tyler refusing to cancel, label will probably back him because you know he’d deny any sort of a relapse.” I nod, knowing every word Mark said is true. “I know Mark, it’s just, this can’t end up as bad as last time when he ended up self harming like this. It went on for months without anyone realizing then by the time someone did, it took so long to get him back on track again,” I pause to breathe, trying not to panic. “Well, look on the bright side, you caught him early on this time so there’s less damage done and we know things we can do to help that will work. I know it seems like we’re back to ground zero, but this time we’re all ready.”

 

**5.**

The next morning, Tyler pretends like nothing happens. He gives me a small bag filled with all sorts of things he could hurt himself with then continues on his day like the night before didn’t even happen. I’m dumbfounded. Mark doesn’t seem quite so shocked. I stick by him all day anyways though, double checking everything he does. Making sure he hasn’t done anything to himself. As the day goes on and we sound check, go through a couple interviews, and get ready for the show, the more I’m sure Tyler has something up his sleeve. His smiles are too bright and his laughs are too loud. I almost choose to ignore it, almost. I listen close enough to pick up on something.

Time for our portion of the show to start creeps up and we both finish getting ready. I’m fixing my tie while Tyler smoothers his hand in black paint, even going as far to get up his arms, which are almost as dark as the hands. I can’t decide if it’s because he’s trying to work through his problems or avoid them.

The beginning of the show goes by smoothly, but before long we’re both changing out of suits and into outfits with shorter sleeves. We both make the quick change into our next outfits and quickly head back to stage from the tented dressing room right behind a black curtain protecting us from the eyes of the audience. When we get to where we part ways, I think I notice red mixed in with the black on Tyler’s wrist. I try not to think about it the rest of the show, pushing down the thoughts and pounding them away with heavy drumming. 

We take our bows on stage but before I can get a word out to Tyler, he makes a beeline for the venue showers. Instead of walking in on him showering, I decide to look through the show tag hoping to find something about Tyler. I don’t want fans to notice anything, but I want them to know at the same time. It doesn’t take long and all I see is pictures from _Holding On To You_ where Tyler’s left wrist looks lightly shredded. You can tell the marks aren’t deep, but you can also tell they look pretty intentional. Tyler’s notifications are probably going wild. As I scroll more, people are starting to wonder why there was no tank top tonight from Tyler. There’s also a particular tweet circulating about how Tyler tensed and flinched away from touch on his leg tonight. I’m tempted to tweet something out, I type up a tweet saying “let’s all send m’brthr @tylerrjoseph some love” and hit send before I change my mind. Instantly my notifications are filled with hundreds of people asking about the well being of my best friend. I lock my phone and stretch out on our dressing room couch waiting for Tyler to come out.

 

**+1.**

Once another 10 minutes have passed, my curiosity get the best of me and I walk to the shower to find Tyler, fully dressed, huddled in a corner sobbing and hyperventilating. Disregarding my own clothes I’m wearing, I hurry over to Tyler for what seems like the 5 millionth time this week. Once I’m close enough I hear him mumbling words I can’t quite make out. 

“Is touching okay Ty?”

He shakes his head no.

“Can you talk right now?”  
Another no.

His mumbling grows more sporadic as I try to calm him down without touching. I go through everything I can think of that helps Tyler calm down. Finally I reach the bottom of the apparently useless list and remember that singing to Tyler can calm him down, so I start barely whispering the words to trees. When I reach the chorus, Tyler stops his own mumbling and joins in on mine, slowly building the song up. By the end of the song, Tyler’s singing loud enough that I can stop and just drum along on my legs. 

“Feeling better now Ty?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess. I’m glad you came in here when you did.”

“Yeah, and why’s that?”

Tyler takes a deep breath, “Here, open your palm please.”

I comply and Tyler drops a small blade in my hand.

“I was, uh, about to do something, I don’t know what. But uh, yeah. Thanks.”

“Hug?” I ask and Tyler pulls me into a wet, clothed shower hug. 

Tyler pulls back, “I’m sorry Josh. I’m sorry for this past week or so.” “Tyler, you have nothing, I repeat, nothing, to be sorry for. It’s not your fault that your mental illness is hard to fight sometimes,” I pull Tyler back into a hug, “Just please, don’t do this again if you can help it.” Tyler nods. “Now, I’m not 100% sure about continuing this tour right now. I’m gonna give you a few more days and if you don’t start to show signs or improvement or something then we’re gonna postpone for a little while. Okay?” Tyler nods again, “Yeah, seems fair. I think I can do it, or at least try to do it.” 

I grin as warm water drips down my face, “I know you can Ty, I know it.”

**Author's Note:**

> yo yo yo my friends... thanks for reading
> 
> sorry if you've been waiting a long time for an update from me, my mental health's been kinda crap lately and I ended up going inpatient for about 5 days. I finished this the day of, however, I didn't have time to upload before leaving for the hospital. so, if you've been waiting (I know a few people said they wanted more via instagram), sorry about that. but it's here now so hope you enjoyed.


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